Mission Trip Hot Tub Incident...

Well, I promised the story about the Hot Tub Incident. Prefacing the story, I must relate a simple fact. I have always admired Billy Graham for many reasons that are immediately obvious. He has always been represented as a man of high moral integrity. One of those reasons is his carefulness to never be placed in a compromising position with women. I have read in his autobiography that when traveling, he would never enter his hotel room unless a staff member went in first to verify there was no one there of the opposite gender.

I have also worked hard to be careful that I am in no similar position of moral question. I have made it a practice to not counsel women unless someone else was present in the building or in an outer office. I will not close a door completely if I am counseling a woman. I include Dallise or some other Christian lady in counseling if and when possible. Except on rare occasions, I do not even have lunch in public with a lady by myself. I certainly do not visit a woman at home alone. I have this whole scary, fearful, funky paranoia thing going on about this sort of encounter.

Now to the story. We were on this R&R trip with our Missionaries in Puerta Vallarta, MX. (See previous blog) About five of us from our group were lounging in the massive 30-person hot tub outside by the pool area. Dallise was sitting by a friend at the opposite end of the little half-circle we formed in the seating area. I'm chatting with one of the guys beside me on the other end of our little half-circle. I looked up to see two young "ladies" entering the hot tub. Now there was lots of room across the hot tub with plenty of distance from where we were seated, but these two girls sat down immediately to my right, immediately adjacent to me, in broad daylight, mind you.

One of them stepped directly in front of me in the water, stuck out her hand and said , "Hi, I'm _____. What's your name." I was rather flustered at this brazen approach and stammered, "I'm Philip, and that's my wife right over there." Undeterred, she asked, "Are you here for business or pleasure?" I was so befuddled, I could not even answer. One of the ladies, one of our friends sitting beside Dallise, took up my defense. While I sat in stunned speechlessness, she answered, "This is our Pastor and we're here on a Missions Trip with our church! We're holding devotions tomorrow morning. Why don't you join us?" Well, that was all that was needed to end the encounter and the two "ladies" immediately left the hot tub. By the way, the "ladies" did not attend devotions the next morning.

I was completely lost and embarrassed and consequently the target of many jokes and jibes for the remainder of the trip. When we returned home and dedicated a service to sharing the events and fruit of our trip, it seems to have been the one story told repeatedly by those who attended the "incident" with me. In future Mission Trips, I have decided it might be wise to avoid the whole hot tub scene altogether. Still, what a way to do a Mission Trip, huh?